Wings of Redemption
by Nosfrat
Summary: A contract killer, ambushed and killed in action, is given another chance at life when he 'wakes up' in Equestria. As he embraces emotions his former life was void of, in a land that isn't quite as utopic as it looks, he is coaxed into going back to his former job. But his growing feelings for a certain mare will get in the way. Rated T for dark themes, mild violence and language.
1. Another Chance at Life

**_A/N: This is the first MLP story I have written that is not a self-insert in any way... I'm not sure if this is a good thing._**  
**_I'm not sure I will finish it, either._**

**_Or, I'm sure I will finish it, but I'm not sure I won't get bored / run out of ideas and rush the ending for the sake of finishing it... We'll see._**

* * *

_Running..._  
_I was running._

_That was about the only thing I could do at this point. This time, it wasn't just my life on the line._

_If a couple of months ago, I had been told that one day, I would be the one running away from danger, I would have believed it. However, if I had been told that one day, I would be willingly rushing into harm's way, against orders, and with the sole purpose of saving a target I was originally sent to condition..._  
_I would have laughed for the first time in decades._

_In the past, I never had any problems admitting how horrible of a man I was. I went and did horrible things. Unspeakable things. It never really mattered much to me. At any given time, in any given location, there were people who needed a man like me. People who had things that needed to be done. And I was the man to get them done._

_Work._  
_It was merely work. As a professional, I could have never afforded to care. That was just it... work._  
_In, and out. Clean._

_But it took me quite a lot to realize how tough things could get when feelings start to get in the way. It took me years... It took me life._  
_My life._

Several months ago...

* * *

As efficient as I was, there was nothing I could have done in such a situation. I had been sold out. Sent on a stealth mission, equipped with simple, close quarter weaponry.  
Even if I had somehow anticipated that ambush... No matter how skilled I was with a blade...

Sure, I could have some of them... Probably one or two. But in the end, I would have died anyway. After all, what good can a simple combat knife do when ambushed by seven hitmen wielding machine guns?  
No good.

Nothing at all.

For the first and the last time, I used my reflexes not to escape a sticky situation, but to assess it.  
I closed my eyes, and dropped my blade. I had some dignity left, and I was not going to make a desperate, suicidal attempt at fighting back.

I do not know if my death was honorable... But at least, it was quick.  
Within a split second, over a dozen bullets had pierced through my clothes and skin, damaging and rupturing my vital organs. If I remember correctly, I think I died before even hitting the floor.

* * *

I felt nothing.  
I never did.

I spent so long in that dark, endless void... All alone, wondering if that was really what afterlife was like.  
I wasn't in pain or anything. I was just... so alone. Given my former job, solitude was something that I was not only used to, but also something that was mandatory.

I always worked alone. Asserting my loneliness by terminating others. That's what I was, a machine. An empty, hollow shell of a man, unable to feel. Trained to hunt. To stalk. To kill. To cold-bloodedly eliminate other people for a living.  
People that were being nuisances to other people.  
And it never seemed wrong to me. Until I somehow started to drift away from that black void I had been stuck into for what felt like days...

I started feeling again. Not actual emotions, but I could feel a presence. Something. Someone.  
Watching me. There were always people watching me, but this was different. They were not watching me, they were watching over me. Without pressure involved. Without hostility.  
Almost as if... as if they were caring.

Eventually, I opened my eyes, and the sight I was met with made me wonder if I had arrived in hell during a cartoon conference of some sort.  
Strange, colorful, talking equines. Some of them had wings, some others had horns... One had both. They were smaller than even miniature horses, and besides their obvious equine features, they did not look much like anything I had ever seen in my lifetime.

Quickly, I came to realize that I hadn't been sent to hell. At least, not literally. This place was so weird, and utopic... But it wasn't heaven, either.  
It took me a few days to even process the fact I had somehow resurrected in an alternate dimension, full of three foot tall mythological creatures calling themselves ponies. They were caring. They were interested in me, and in what I had to tell them.  
They were interested by my apparent resistance to the strange psychic energy they call magic. But most importantly, they were interested by my species. Apparently, in this land, humans were ancient, legendary creatures. For some, they were merely a legend. For others, they were precursors, extinct since hundreds of millennia.

Having an actual human here quickly shook their community to its very foundations. Some believed I was the incarnation of an ancient, evil spirit. Some others believed I was an entity by the name of Discord playing a very elaborate prank on them.  
But, one of them believed me. One of them believed that I was telling the truth, and that I was, in fact, a simple human from a different dimension, somehow brought back from the dead.  
That particular pony was especially intrigued by three things. She could never feel any emotion radiating from me. She never found in any of her books any record of a job that involved killing sentient beings for money, without at least personal grudge of some kind... And she had trouble believing I was resistant to her magic.  
So resistant, in fact, that just about any unicorn would run out of magical power before it could affect me. She had assured me her magic was one of the most powerful known to their civilization, and she could not stand seeing me seemingly absorbing all but her most powerful spells.

We ended up talking. We talked a lot, and about a lot of different things. For the first time in my life, both my previous and now current life, I was finding myself interested in another being. I was actively trying to get to know more about her. There was something about her. Something I could not quite put my finger on.  
If I had really been given another chance at life, then she would have to be the embodiment of redemption. I was here for a reason, and she was here to give me a second chance.  
A life where I could feel. Where I could live, and not kill. A life where I could love. And maybe be loved.

We spent a lot of time together, and she eventually proposed me to move into her house.  
Her house, which was basically a giant, hollowed out tree, which also served as a library. She had two pets, or assistants as she likes to call them. A little, purple baby dragon, and a strange looking owl.  
She claimed to have a lot of friends, and told me about all the adventures they went on together, but apart from the day I arrived in this land... I don't think I ever saw Twilight Sparkle hanging out with the friends she loves speaking of.

Whatever time she didn't spend reading or studying me, she spent it in a city nearby, called Canterlot. Apparently, this nation is ruled by two diarchs, who seem to have some kind of power over celestial objects. It sounded really absurd at first, but one's idea of absurdity can easily be changed after witnessing a three feet tall purple unicorn with wings firing beams of telekinetic energy at a rampaging dragon nearly the size of a skyscraper, before levitating him away, back into the forest from which he came.

So she was often away in Canterlot, according to her, mostly to talk about me to her teacher and mentor, a princess by the name of Celestia. She supposedly had some sort of magical connection to the sun, and was responsible for moving the star, essentially shaping the day and night cycle, along with her sister, who controlled the moon. I didn't need long before simply giving up on even trying to understand anything here.  
After all, I was torn to shreds by automatic gunfire in an ambush, and the next thing I knew, I was alive and perfectly fine, considered the ambassador of a mythological species in an alternate dimension by a bunch of miniature pastel equines. No man should ever have to live through such things.

As she started to be away more and more often, I grew tired of staying in her house, and decided to go out and try to socialize with other ponies. Eventually, I was asked by the local school's teacher to give her students a class about human history. While I had openly told them I was a former contract killer, I wasn't sure whether they even realized what it meant, or if they were simply ridiculously tolerant and trustful. I never hurt a single creature since I got here, and I never felt the need to, either.  
Maybe because I had no need for money... yet.

All those new emotions were foreign to me. Friendship, trust, helping others... so many things I only knew by name back on Earth. Experiencing them was... interesting, to say the least.  
This went on for a couple of weeks, during which I was asked by a certain filly's father to give her, and her friend, personal lessons on humanity, particularly finance and politics.

Why would two fillies care about such things was beyond me, but when the request comes from a businesspony named Filthy Rich, it doesn't seem that nonsensical.  
And it was somewhat of a relief to see that not everything was perfect here. The rich were still slaves to their income. The poor were still poor. The parents were still trying to get their children to serve their own interests. And that whole cutie mark nonsense, essentially condemningponies to be stuck with one talent for their entire life... The fact that somehow their names were almost always related to their talents and cutie marks wasn't making it any better.

Being seen as some sort of ambassador wasn't a bad thing in itself, but I can't say I was doing a stellar job at representating the human race. What was I supposed to know about finance and politics, anyway?

I work for whoever needs my... abilities. That usually leads me to a place with a target, which I then eliminate, thus completing the job, before getting paid... no questions asked.  
No refunds.

At least, that's how it was. I wasn't really missing it, but I was missing having a purpose in life. Emotionless as I was before, simply carrying out orders, essentially giving me something to do, was perfectly fine. It was sufficient.  
But ever since I found myself in this place called Equestria, I have been feeling confused about myself. I was trained not to care about anything, and not to feel anything, but with the burden of dishing out death being nothing more than a distant memory, I started to feel many things.  
The simple ability to feel emotions made me crave for more. But the lack of a job and a very limited social life were making it pretty hard. I wanted to go out, meet ponies, socialize, do things normal people would do everyday on Earth...  
But I didn't really know how.

As the days went by, I slowly found myself attracted to Twilight Sparkle. The more often she was gone, the more I would think about her, and wish she could be here, talking with me, studying me, or simply sit somewhere, her nose buried into a book while I would just stand there and watch her stick her wings and tongue out, so focused that not even an earthquake would distract her.

Having never really felt anything in my former life, finding myself attracted to a pastel winged unicorn from another dimension wasn't actually that strange to me.

And one day, she decided that I needed to meet Celestia in person. At first, I thought she was a pretty decent mare, and an absolutely amazing one if considering the fact she rules a whole nation. Nothing like the crooked, corrupt politicians and dictators there were back on Earth... at least, that's what I thought after our first meeting. A few days later, Twilight sent her a report about me, and my limited, sporadic reactions to magic.  
For some reason, this caused Celestia to want to see me again, but without Twilight.

Going back to Canterlot, she invited me into her personal bedchambers, and took great care of locking every possible way out. This was eerily familiar to the typical... business meetings I would have back in my previous life, almost to the point I would have felt uneasy without a weapon. Little did I know... As it turned out, not everything was magic and rainbows in this land. Similarly, they were creatures being nuisances to other creatures, and things that needed to be taken care of.  
The solar princess, apparently well aware of the existence of contract killing, made me an offer I found difficult to refuse.

Agreeing, although on my terms, I carried out my first job in Equestria. Masterfully, as I always did, although it was much easier here. Firearms do not exist, only dragons and minotaurs could have the physical strength to give me problems, and most creatures heavily rely on magic for defensive purposes.  
The sight of my blade coated in crimson liquid nearly completely deleted from my mind that idea of redemption I had grown accustomed to.

This...  
This was what I always did. What I was always meant to do. Take orders. Execute orders. Acquire money. Rinse, and repeat. Within a week or so, several powerful figures across the whole nation had heard about me, and I started to receive a lot of requests for carrying out various... tasks. While I was mostly an assassin, actual killing wasn't the main focus here, as most creatures were much more docile than the average human.

Intimidation, robbery, kidnapping... New activities I found actually entertaining. I wasn't sure whether it was because of my new life or not, but I wasn't just doing it for a living. I was actually enjoying it... until that day.

Hardly spending any time with Twilight Sparkle anymore, who was now attending an advanced flight school three days a week, I went on a trip to a city on the western part of Equestria called Las Pegasus. A boastful, small time criminal mare asked for my services.  
I enjoyed both the job and the pay, so I had no reason to refuse.

After ruining my back, slouching under the five foot roof of her wagon for half an hour, I walked outside with very clear and concise instructions. The kind I like to receive.

Get to place X, seek target Y, bring target Y to location Z.  
A very basic kidnapping. Apparently, this blue unicorn mare had a strong personal grudge against the target.

_Codename Nightfall._


	2. Codename Nightfall

Celestia was kind enough to give me some kind of magical card that contains all the information needed for me to freely travel across Equestria, with the added ability to generate a whole new set of data whenever needed. After all, anonymity was a critical thing for me to successfully do my job. While the bipedal, mythological creature standing two to three feet taller than most ponies wasn't exactly the dernier cri in terms of blending into a crowd, I was stealthy enough to make sure I never aroused any suspicions... Not like it was any hard. Those creatures were trustful, gullible and horribly naïve. Most of them, anyway.

Looking over the small piece of scroll with all the information about my target, I smiled and headed back for the nearest train station. Apparently, the target was in Canterlot.  
I ran enough errands for Celestia, and I was starting to know the city pretty well. Better than Ponyville, in fact.

The ride took a few hours and was pretty uneventful, except for the random pony who asked me things about humans. No matter where I went, there would always be one pony to ask. Yet another one of these things I would rather not question...  
Back to Canterlot, my eyes scanned the horizon.

Codename Nightfall was expected to enter the castle at exactly 2100 hours, and make their way to the room D located in the east wing.  
According to my watch, is was 8:05 PM, so I had to wait about an hour before I could safely move in. The night was falling, probably being the reason for the codename.

Walking around for a while, I decided to get a little physical exercise in the darker alleyways, waving my blade around, jumping on dumpsters and overall doing parkour with whatever I could find on the ground. I was never really fit or anything, but due to my job, I obviously had to be in decent physical condition. I was always a little on the big side, and had quite a bit of trouble to properly blend into a crowd of humans, as they were more than likely to notice the six feet, two hundred pounds guy with uncommon clothing and various equipment strapped to his belt... but here, it was perfect. None of the ponies knew what an average human was supposed to be like, and I would pretty much look the same to them if I were a good ten inches shorter or taller.

* * *

After a while, I decided to walk back to the castle, and flashed my card at the guards, who promptly moved aside, letting me inside. Using one of the countless secret passages Celestia showed me, I quickly made it to the room D, and slowly approached my ear to the closed door.  
Something was going on in here. Checking my watch, I realized that I was five minutes early. What was wrong with me? That was a really foolish, novice move. Did I seriously forget to check my watch?

Retreating into a dark corridor and waiting until 9:00 PM sharp, I let my thoughts wander off. I was really missing Twilight Sparkle. While the library itself felt empty without her, I hadn't been staying there in a while.

However, I was really missing her company. I wouldn't have gone as far as saying my life was empty without her, but... I was definitely missing something. Whenever we were together, we were always talking, laughing, sharing things... And now that she was 'gone', always away, attending random things in various places and all, loneliness was really starting to set in.  
I was working pretty often these days, too, and I was beginning to wonder if it was a good thing.

Missing someone... somepony?  
Back on Earth, I never thought I would ever be missing another living being. Or needing the company of anyone. All of this still felt pretty foreign, and confusing... And I was starting to be afraid these emotions would get me in trouble, or worse...  
Killed.

Would I end up back on Earth if I died here in Equestria? I wasn't exactly eager to find out. I had to get my shit together, and complete the job.  
This one, at least. After all, according to that blue unicorn, the money would be enough for me to live for several months.

Shaking my head as if it would clear my mind of those thoughts, I checked my watch. It was 9:13 PM.  
Well, time to move in... I didn't see anything enter the room, though. And the noises inside still hadn't stopped. Trusting my gut feeling, telling me that whatever was inside, was indeed the target, I readied my blade, before slowly and quietly opening the door. Taking a quick look around, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except that the lights were off, the only source of light coming from the moonlight shining through a half closed window nearby.

The target was a unicorn, sitting on some sort of bed, softly breathing and doing something with their hooves. By the sounds it was making, I could tell they had been crying earlier. I could hardly see anything beyond their horn and moving hooves, but that was irrelevant to me anyway. Not wasting any time, I crawled up to it and swiftly stabbed it in the neck with a syringe.  
Pumping it full of sedatives, or whatever would be the magical equivalent, I smirked as it fell unconscious within seconds, before even realizing what had happened.

Still in the dark, I grabbed the unconscious pony and put it in a large bag. It was most likely a female, the body was firm and toned, but also soft and slender. It was definitely not a typical stallion's body. Not too keen on checking down there, I zipped the back closed and slowly exited the room, and the castle.  
I was wearing a delivery service uniform, and had their logo on the large bag. Simple and classic, but effective. Nothing and no one would have ever gotten suspicious. There was thick stuffing inside the inner 'walls' of the bag, to make sure that not only the target would be shielded from exterior hazards, but also that the bag itself would keep its rounded form regardless of what is inside.

Walking away from the castle, and towards my destination, I couldn't help but wonder what was going on. Why would this light blue mare want me to snatch another unicorn, and bring her to a seemingly random place in the middle of the forest?  
It had to be some sort of personal vendetta, if she had wanted her dead, she would have sent me to kill her... Not snatch her.  
But then I still wasn't too familiar with actual assassinations in this land. I had been assigned with a few of those, but only in shady, rural towns. A murder inside the Canterlot castle wouldn't exactly be the smartest way to go about it.

I had the magical equivalent of a GPS, and the exact coordinates, but I still couldn't shake off the feeling that I was about to walk into a trap.  
Having your death caused by something has that effect of making you wary of that particular something.  
If not paranoid.

Eventually, I arrived in front of a large tree with a hole carved in the side. My GPS giving me the usual 'you have arrived to your destination' message, I guessed I was expected to enter. I took a step in and blinked, my eyes taking some time to get used to the darkness.

A heavily distorted voice rang through my ears.

"Lay the bag down, and walk away. The money is behind the bush right by the lake, to your left when you exit."

That was odd... But then, I had done my job, and it wasn't like I never had weirder ways of being paid. Walking to the indicated location, I grabbed the bag full of bits, and walked away. This forest had an eerie, almost ethereal feel to it, and I didn't exactly want to linger.

Being still close to Canterlot, I figured I might as well get a hotel room and spend the night here. After all, with Twilight never being home, and Ponyville being several miles away...

As I got close to the city, I saw a lot of ponies running around, apparently upset, or at least worried about something. Before I could ask one of them what was happening, Celestia teleported right in front me, scaring the hell out of me.

She gave me an angry look, spreading her wings and lighting up her horn.

"Do you know what you have done?"

"Uh, yes. I just successfully carried out yet another job, why?" I answered, although feeling a little uneasy around that eighteen inches horn radiating with the most powerful magic in this world.

"Do you have any idea what you have just done, by simply doing your job, as you put it?"

"Beyond the fact that I did do my job, no. I do not. What's wrong, are you upset that I sometimes work for somepony else?"

"Who?"

"You know, princess... I've been doing that job for years. Hell, for nearly two decades. And no one, or nopony, has ever asked me so bluntly so reveal classified information."

"I was in this business before you were even born. But this is a matter of national security, and you will have to answer my questions. Who exactly asked you to kidnap her? What did they tell you? And how could have they known so fast?" she whipsered the last part to herself, although I heard it.

I started scratching my head, honestly not understanding a word of what she was saying. "Who's her? Who's they? Know what?"

"How could they have known that she would be at her weakest, and helpless without her wings... I dread to imagine what they're doing to her right now."

"Wait, her wings? What wings? I snatched a unicorn, not a pegasus."

"You snatched a former alicorn. I had to strip Twilight Sparkle of her princess title, and of her wings. I will not go in-depth as to why I did so, but the unicorn you captured was the one you've been living with for weeks."

"What? I... Why was she... Twilight? What was she doing here? Why?"

"Don't search for a reason. Search for her. Go back to the place you left her, and get her back. If anything happens to her... You know that she's an element of harmony. The most important one."

"Yeah, well... Why don't you do it? I mean, you're the princess, you move the damn sun! Wouldn't it be easier for you?"

"You made the mistake, you fix it. Besides, it will allow me to see if you are the right one..."

"The right one? The right one for what?"

"Enough talking, you should already be on your way."

"Now listen, is that an assignment or something? Am I getting paid for this?"

"You don't usually get paid for fixing your own mistakes, now do you?"

"Then why don't you make me? I'm not working for you if I don't get paid."

"Would you rather work on the moon?"

"Oh, you think you could send me to the moon? You'd be lucky if you manage to levitate me two feet off the ground."

She looked at me, her pride having taken a serious hit. Then, she brought her horn forwards and slowly pressed against my forehead with its sharp tip.

"I have other ways to deal with you, if magic fails."

"Are you threatening me, princess?"

"Not quite as much as they, whoever they are, are threatening Twilight Sparkle."

Deep inside, something told me to do it. Not the usual '_I messed up, so I have to fix it_'. Not the unusual '_I have to do it because it's the right thing to do_'. either.  
But something more like...

'_I don't want to live without Twilight_'.

Not bothering to answer Celestia, I turned back, with the strong intent to save the lavender unicorn, and kill that blue showmare.


End file.
